MSU public event to feature uncle of Columbine High victim

STARKVILLE, Miss.--Rachel's Challenge is a Colorado-based organization that works to prevent future shootings like the one in 1999 at Columbine High School.

During a free public program Wednesday [April 9], a top spokesman for the national non-profit will speak at Mississippi State.

Larry Scott's presentation begins at 7 p.m. in the university's Humphrey Coliseum. His visit is sponsored by the campus Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and the Junior Auxiliary of Starkville.

Scott is the uncle of the late Rachel Scott, the organization's namesake and one of 12 students and a teacher murdered in 1999. His two teenage children were at school on the day of the April 20 assault.

The massacre by Columbine seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold also injured some two dozen others. A highly planned and suicidal attack, it remains as the deadliest mass murder committed on an American high school campus.

Based in Littleton--home of Columbine High--Rachel's Challenge was founded shortly afterwards by Darrell Scott, Rachel's father and Larry's brother, to help "create safe, connected school environments where learning and teaching are maximized." In addition to being a non-profit, the organization is non-political and non-religious.

Messages delivered by the Scotts and others are based on writings of the 17-year-old Rachel, who was the first to die that day. The presentations incorporate examples from her life, along with a two-page "Code of Ethics" she composed not long before her death.

For more information on Scott's address, contact Jacqueline Mullen, director of the Center for Student Activities, at 662-325-2930 or jc998@msstate.edu.